CPK Review

When in Seattle the other day we stopped for an early dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, CPK. The menu has grown, as King County requires all restaurants to provide nutritional information for everything served. So now we have a menu, a wine and beverage menu, a specials menu and the nutrition menu. We ignored the latter, having acquired the common sense to modulate our eating habits, and the fortitude to control impulses. 


I wonder though if one is too ignorant to manage ones diet without governmental assistance, if one is also too ignorant to read?

CPK has been busy adding items to the menu. I guess one of the concept cornerstones is wacky menu creativity, so there we are. The new items we chose were pea soup and tostada pizza. Neither is a really big demonstration of Cali Crazy Culinary Creativity. But they are loaded with fiber!  (We didn't seek verification from the nutrition guide, we know beans and peas have fiber. Highly educated, well read people are we.)

The soup was pea soup, but not good. Think cooked dried peas, pureed with some kind of gritty white stuff I it. Coulda been cheese, but because the soup was lukewarm it didn't melt?  The flavor was peaful, nothing more. Avoid it.

The Tostada pizza was, that's right, a taco pizza, only not quite as good as the old Pizza Hut version. Black bean smash loaded in the center to make it soggy, barely any-barely any flavor cheese. Lettuce that was not well shredded, so it couldn't be made to stay on a slice. A decent looking, flavorless salsa on the side. That's it. Tasty?  No. Appetizing? No. Original? No.

But we didn't mind the bad food so much, because the prices are so high. Yes, CPK has raised prices again. Their favorite way to manage margin. Is it any wonder they are for sale? Again?  Avoid.